Company as Director, (welcke Peter Minuit de E. H. Compagnie voor directeur hierte lande heeft gedient.)*

It seems to be clear, therefore, that Minuit was director or governor of the colony; but when or how long, is a matter of uncertainty, except that he preceded Van Twiller. His subsequent connexion with the Swedish colony on the Delaware is fully described by Acrelius. During the short period of his government in that quarter, the Swedes had no difficulties with their Dutch neighbours. He died, about the year 1641, at Christina, now Wilmington, Delaware.t

WOUTER VAN TWILLER.

The administration of Van Twiller commenced in the spring of 1633, as is mentioned by De Vries, who arrived here about the same time. The ship that brought out the new governor was lying in the harbour when the latter anchored near Staten Island. It is stated, however, that Van Twiller had been here before, in 1629, in an official capacity, and that the representations he afterwards made concerning the colony occasioned the recall of Minuit. Not having been able as yet to trace this statement to any authority on which full reliance can be placed, we must date his directorship from 1633. It lasted five years, when he appears to have been superseded by William Kieft. Van Twiller continued to reside in the colony after he ceased to hold the office of director, and seems to have occasioned some uneasiness to the company by disregarding their authority on several occasions, as appears from their letters to the Director General, contained in the colonial records. Leaving New-Amsterdam, he had removed to the colony of Rensselaerwyck, where he was engaged in commercial operations during the administration of Governor Stuyvesant.

WILLIAM KIEFT.

This energetic functionary arrived as the successor of Van Twiller, in the year 1638. With his administration the records of the colony that have been preserved, commence; and they are continued with considerable regularity down to the close of the Dutch dynasty. There seems to be no want of material for a full account of Kieft's directorship, which lasted eight or nine years. He sailed on his return to Holland in 1647; but the ship in which he embarked, the Princess, was lost, and all on board perished. Among the passengers was the Rev. Everardus Bogardus, the first minister of the colony.

* Above, p. 429. Van der Donck alludes to him as “Commander Minuit,” above, p. 160. 254.

+ See above, p.

+ Acrelius, 15. The loss of this ship is mentioned by Van der Donck. See above, P. 162.

Mr Peter Stuyvesant.

PETRUS STUYVESANT.

The commission of Governor Stuyvesant was dated July 26th, 1646, and embraced New-Netherlands and the islands of Curaçoa, Bonaire, and Aruba, on the Spanish main. He arrived here the twenty-seventh of May, 1647. His administration was at the same time the longest, and the most perplexed and trying of all. The encroachments of New-England upon the east, of Maryland upon the south-west, and of the Swedes on the Delaware, served to keep the government of the colony in a state of almost constant excitement. At one time we find the Director General negotiating with the English at Boston, or Hartford, at another prosecuting a vigorous and successful campaign against the Swedish garrisons on the Delaware, and at another time making a voyage to Curaçoa on the coast of South America. There were troubles, too, nearer home; some disaffected spirits endeavoured to produce a popular commotion in the colony, and to overturn not only the authority of the Governor, but of the Directors of the West India Company. In the midst of all these difficulties the colony continued to prosper, and New-Amsterdam, before a straggling village, now began to assume an air of regularity, being laid out into streets, adorned with substantial Dutch houses. This improvement was made about the year 1656.

At length, however, the continued encroachments of the English, who were every day increasing in strength, both upon the east and the south-west, began to occasion serious alarm in the Dutch colony; and when a war broke out between the parent countries, there was little hope that it would escape the grasping cupidity of British power. "Your honours imagine, says Stuyvesant, in a letter to the company, dated April 20th, 1660," that the troubles in England will prevent any attempt on these parts: alas! they are ten to one in number to us, and are able without any assistance to deprive us of the country when they please." Again, in the following year, he writes:"We have advices from England, that there is an invasion intended against these parts, and the country solicited of the king, the duke, and the parliament, is to be annexed to their dominions; and for that purpose they desire three or four frigates," &c. These rumors were not without foundation; but the expedition did not sail until the year 1664, when, with the assistance of the New-England colonies, New-Netherlands was brought under subjection to the Duke of York, to whom his brother Charles I. had granted a patent of the country.

Thus ended the administration of Petrus Stuyvesant, who, on the surrender, obtained such favourable terms for his countrymen that scarcely any of them removed from the colony; they

remained in the enjoyment of their own customs, and of their civil and religious rights and privileges, without hindrance or objection on the part of their new rulers. Such was the pertinacity with which they adhered to the use of their own language, that a full century elapsed after the conquest before an English sermon was heard in the Dutch church of the city of New-York. The innovation even at that late day (1764) was stoutly resisted, and did not extend to the entire exclusion of the Dutch language from the church, as it continued to be used one half of the time for several years later.

Governor Stuyvesant was himself induced to continue his residence in the country, being somewhat advanced in years; and passed the remainder of his life on his bouwery or farm, now constituting the greater portion of the eleventh and seventeenth, and a part of the sixteenth wards of the city. He died in the early part of the year 1672, and his remains lie in a vault originally constructed by himself beneath a chapel on his estate. This edifice having fallen into decay, the late Petrus Stuyvesant, Esq., who succeeded to most of his ancestor's estates, induced the vestry of Trinity Church to erect a handsome structure upon the same site, to which he contributed liberally himself; and the corner stone of "St. Mark's Church in the Bowery," was accordingly laid on the 25th of April, 1795. At that time the foundation only of the chapel remained.

A recent publicationt contains a genealogical notice of the descendants of Governor Stuyvesant; but as it is somewhat erroneous, as well as imperfect, in its details of dates, &c., it is here re-printed with some corrections.

* Bancroft, Hist. United States, ii. 294, has the following remarks under the year 1649-"The island of New-York was then chiefly divided among farmers; the large forests which covered the Park and the adjacent region, long remained a common pasture, where, for yet a quarter of a century, tanners could obtain bark, and boys chestnuts; and the soil was so little valued, that Stuyvesant thought it no wrong to his employers to purchase of them at a small price an extensive bowery just beyond the coppices, among which browsed the goats and kine from the village." This is true in part; farming lands were cheap at that period, as well as the present, compared with real estate in the city. But we have found Van Twiller eleven years earlier (1638) taking a lease of a farm from Director Kieft, at an annual rent of 250 guilders, (above, p. 280;) and other instances might be adduced, showing that the lands on the island of Manhattan were then of considerable value. In regard to Governor Stuyvesant's estates, we have examined his titles to some extent, and find that in most instances they were derived from individuals instead of the Company. For example, in 1656, he purchased about fifty acres of land on the East river from William Beekman; Herman Smeeman had previously sold the same to Beekman, and Governor Kieft to Smeeman, April 2d, 1647. Again, there is a grond-brief, or deed, of thirty-nine mor. gen, (about eighty acres,) from Leendert Arenden to Peter Stuyvesant; the same having been conveyed to Arenden by Kieft, October 19th, 1645. This land is still chiefly held by descendants of Governor Stuyvesant, and embraces a compact part of the city.

+ Dunlap's Hist. of New-York, ii. Appendix L.

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