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CHAPTER VI.

NEW NETHERLAND UNDER PETER STUYVESANT.

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STUYVESANT'S ARRIVAL AT MANHATTAN.. - HOPEFUL RECEPTION BY THE CITIZENS.HE BEFRIENDS EX-GOVERNOR KIEFT.- ARREST AND TRIAL OF KUYTER AND MELYN. THEIR BANISHMENT AND DEPARTURE WITH KIEFT. - WRECK OF THE PRINCESS. DIFFICULTIES WITH NEW ENGLAND.-SEIZURE OF THE ST. BENINIO. — THE CONSEQUENT QUARREL WITH NEW HAVEN. CONTROVERSY WITH THE COMMISSARY OF RENSSELAERSWYCK. DISCONTENT OF THE PEOPLE. APPEAL OF THE CITIZENS TO HOLLAND. - MELYN'S RETURN. — REVERSAL OF HIS SENTENCE. THE REMONSTRANCE FORWARDED TO THE STATES-GENERAL. VAN DER DONCK AND THE DELEGATES AT THE HAGUE. STUYVESANT'S CONTINUED ARROGANCE.

Governor

arrival at

May, 1647.

ON the 27th of May, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant, the new governor who, the New Netherlanders hoped, had come to remedy all the evils which they had suffered under the administration Stuyvesant's of Kieft, arrived amid "shouting on all sides" and the burn- Manhattan, ing of nearly all the powder in the town in salutes.1 The rejoicing was universal, and even Kieft himself was glad, probably, to welcome a successor who was to release him from the cares of a vexatious office. As the excited burghers gathered near the fort upon what is now known as the Battery, to look at the fleet anchored in the harbor, they congratulated each other, no doubt, that an era of peace, prosperity, and equitable rule had come at last.

The burghers forgot for the moment, if they had ever heard, that the reputation of the new governor was not altogether un- His previous sullied. It is said that in Holland he had been detected in career. robbing the daughter of his host, and that he would have been punished for the act had he not been mercifully forgiven for the sake of his father, who was a clergyman in Vriesland, and greatly esteemed. The famous expedition against St. Martin, where Stuyvesant lost his leg-in place of which he ever after wore a wooden one, bound together with rings of silver, and therefore called his "silver leg," — this expedition, it was said, was unsuccessful because it was so badly con

1 So extravagant was this demonstration of welcome "that they were obliged to send to another place to buy powder for exercising and in case of need.”. The Breeden Raedt. Extracts translated in Documentary History of New York, vol. iv., p. 69.

ducted; for the commander wasted, in vainglorious salutes at sea, nearly all his powder before he reached the fort; and when he raised the siege, which he had not ammunition enough to go on with, he left behind him, not only his leg but much property, especially cannon. But as the leg was really lost, it seems hardly probable that its owner had acted the part of a coward, and other stories against him on the same authority may be as little likely to be true.1

At any rate the enthusiastic people of New Amsterdam, when they welcomed with shouts and all their powder this successor to Kieft, were so full of pleasant excitement and hopeful anticipations of a happy and prosperous future, that they failed to call to mind, if they had ever heard of, any moral delinquencies of which the man might have been guilty in far-off Holland, or of military failures which had befallen him in the West Indies.

This popular enthusiasm, however, hardly outlasted the ceremony of reception. Stuyvesant was a man of haughty as well as violent temper; more imperious in presence and in manners than Kieft whom he came to displace, he was quite as despotic, and the more to be feared for his ability and strength of purpose. When he landed he marched into the town "like a peacock, with great state and pomp." Some of the principal citizens met him bare-headed, and bare-headed "he let them wait for several hours, he himself keeping his hat on his head as if he was the czar of Muscovy; nobody was offered a chair, while he seated himself very comfortably on a chair, the better to give the welcomers an audience." The picture is not drawn by friendly hands, but it is not out of keeping with what we know of Peter Stuyvesant.

His reception.

2

But he did better presently when Kieft came forward to surrender the government into the hands of his successor. As the retiring governor stood for the last time before his fellow-citizens in his official capacity, he wished, perhaps, to bury the memory of past animosities; at any rate he must have been anxious to step down gracefully from his elevation, as he yielded the place to another. He thanked his fellow-citizens with a natural if not pardonable exaggeration for the fidelity they had shown him during his administration of affairs, hoping, no doubt, that he would be met in a like conciliatory and compliant mood, and his services acknowledged in terms that would be complaisant if insincere. But the sturdy Dutchmen were not to be cheated out of their resentments by any momentary enthusiasm or

1 Translations from The Breeden Raedt, in Documentary Hist. of New York.

2 The Representation of New Netherland (1650). By Adrian van der Donck. Translated by Henry C. Murphy. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, vol. ii. The Breeden Raedt. Documentary Hist. N. Y.

1647.]

STUYVESANT'S PROMISES.

117

ceremonial proprieties. On all sides went up a shout of loud dissent; as spokesmen for the rest, Joachim Kuyter and Cornelis Melyn, who were of the old Board of " Eight Men," and had otherwise been conspicuous as opponents of Kieft, declared boldly that they had nothing to thank him for and no approval to give. Such unexpected candor marred the harmonies of the occasion.

and might have led to even more sig-
nificant demonstrations of popular feel-
ing, had not Stuyvesant
stepped forward and stilled
the growing excitement by

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declaring that "every one should have justice done him. I shall govern you," he said, "as a father his children, for

the advantage of the chartered West India Company, and these burghers and this land." 1

The crowd dispersed, quieted if not satisfied with these assurances of the paternal intentions of the new governor, and almost forgot how long they had stood bare-headed in the sun.

1 Breeden Raedt and Albany Records, cited by Brodhead, History of New York, vol. ii.,

D. 433.

The citizens'

Kieft.

There was not much delay, however, in testing his sincerity. Before many days had passed Kuyter and Melyn brought a formal complaint against Kieft, and asked that a rigid inquiry be made complaint of into the alleged abuses of his government, and especially of his treatment of the Indians which had led to the war. The answer was as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Was it to be accepted as his opinion that it was treason to petition against one's magistrates, whether there was cause or not? The denials of Kieft. he considered as of more weight than any evidence his antagonists could bring to substantiate their charges. He would not, he declared, recognize them officially as members of the late Board of “ Eight Men," nor as representatives of the citizens at large; but only as “private persons." He looked upon them, he said, merely as "perturbators of the public peace," hardly worthy of a hearing. In all this he was mindful of the force of precedent. "If this point be conceded," he said to his council, “will not these cunning fellows, in order to usurp over us a more unlimited power, claim and assume, in consequence, even greater authority against ourselves and our commission, should it happen that our administration do not quadrate in every respect with their whims?" His despotism was not without Stuyvesant. forethought. The council had no will and no opinions of their own; all its members, Van Dincklage, Van Dyck, Keyser, Captain Newton, La Montagne, and Van Tienhoven the provincial secretary, hastened to agree with him, and the petition of Kuyter and Melyn was not granted.1

Policy of

The wily Kieft saw his opportunity in this unexpected turn of affairs, and embraced it promptly. The defendant became plaintiff, and brought charges against Kuyter and Melyn, who, he declared, were the authors of that appeal of the "Eight Men" to the chamber of Amsterdam; 2 that they had induced their colleagues, against their better judgment, to join in that petition, all whose statements, he affirmed, were false. The ex-governor was listened to where the "private persons" had no standing in court. They were ordered to answer the accusations within twenty-four hours.

Stuyvesant was only the more enraged when that answer was an offer to produce the evidence of the truth of all the charges sent to Amsterdam against Kieft, and to bring forward the four survivors of the Eight Men to testify that they had voluntarily signed the documents containing those charges. It was only an aggravation of the

1 See Stuyvesant's address on this subject in O'Callaghan, vol. ii., pp. 24, 26.

2 See vol. i., p. 462.

3 The Breeden Raedt says that these survivors were induced by threats and promises to testify that they had been bribed to sign the letters sent to Holland containing the charges against Kieft.

1647.]

TRIAL OF KUYTER AND MELYN.

119

offence, on the part of the accused, to propose thus to show their innocence. The Director General ordered that they be at once indicted; a speedy trial followed, and a prompt conviction waited on the trial.

Per

treatment of the popular

Both were found guilty. Kuyter was condemned to three years' banishment and to pay a fine of one hundred and fifty Arbitrary guilders. The sentence of Melyn was more severe. haps there were additional charges against him; perhaps the leaders. enmity of Kieft, who, says one authority, had resented Melyn's refusal some time before to give him a share in the manor of Staten Island, was more bitter. The patroon was at any rate declared guilty of treason, of bearing false witness, of libel and defamation; was sentenced to forfeit all benefits of the Company, to pay a fine of three hundred guilders, and to be banished for seven years. The Director was in favor of severer punishment, but even his pliant council dissented from his judgment, though he supported it by a violent speech, in which he appealed to Scripture and the authority of the learned in civil and criminal law with many a text and quotation.

When it was suggested to the triumphant Kieft that the result of the trial might have been different in Holland, "Why should we,” said he, exultingly, "alarm each other with justice in Holland? In this case I consider it only a scarecrow." Stuyvesant was even more emphatic. Melyn, he thought, deserved death, and was threatened with it by the Director. "If I was

Cornelios mely

Signature of Cornelis Melyn.

persuaded," he said, "you would appeal from my sentences or divulge them, I would have your head cut off, or have you hanged on the highest tree in New Netherland." To another person he said, "If any one, during my administration, shall appeal, I will make him a foot shorter, and send the pieces to Holland, and let him appeal in that way."

These servants of the West India Company had little fear, probably, of their masters, who cared little and did less for New Netherland, and who, already in a condition of bankruptcy, had neither the power nor the will to regulate the affairs of the distant colony. Had it been otherwise, however, Stuyvesant would not have been likely to put a bridle upon his tongue, for so transported was he with rage at these daring attacks upon prerogative, that "the foam hung on his beard" as he roared and raged against their perpetrators. "These

1 The West India Company: in Bibliographical and Historical Essays on the Dutch Books and Pamphlets relating to New Netherland. By G. M. Asher.

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