Conflict between the Director and

another letter from Nicolls. Stuyvesant read it in the presence of the council and the burgomasters. The terms it offered were still more favorable. Trade with Holland in Dutch the people. vessels would not be interfered with; emigrants from the mother-country could come and settle in New Netherland as hitherto; the colony would be under English jurisdiction, instead of that of the Company, but otherwise the condition of the Dutch colonists would hardly be interfered with. Those who favored surrender were all the more anxious that the people should see this second letter; Stuyvesant all the more dreaded the effect it would have upon them. The debate was hot and furious, till Stuyvesant in a rage ended it by tearing the letter in pieces and scattering the fragments upon the floor, "dilacerated" it, exclaimed the indignant and baffled burgo

masters.

66 as

Hitherto there had been some show of labor upon the fortifications, but now they were abandoned, and an exasperated mob surged about the Stadt-Huys. They demanded to see the Governor; to offer resistance to such a force as threatened them would be, they said, idle as to gape before an oven." When Stuyvesant appeared he was greeted with shouts of "The letter! the letter!" Reproaches and curses were showered upon him and the Company. Defeated and helpless he returned to the council chamber; the fragments of the "dilacerated" document were gathered up and put together, and a copy delivered to the burgomasters to do with it what they would.

The question of surrender was, nevertheless, still in the hands of the Director. He sent to Nicolls a long answer, defiant, didactic, and argumentative. He defended the rights of the Dutch to the country by discovery, settlement, and possession; he protested against this infringement of the treaty between England and the States-General; he urged the agreement between himself and Scott which was to stand good for a twelvemonth: he feared no threats, and he trusted in God, who could as well preserve with a small force as with a great army.

for the as

city.

Nicolls, nevertheless, though he may have been quite as pious as the Preparations Director, had great reliance on superiority of force. A comsault of the pany of regular cavalry and the Connecticut militia were al ready encamped on Long Island just below Breukelen; these he ordered should be reinforced with all the troops of two of the ships, in readiness for an attack by land and in the rear, while the two other frigates were to sail up in front and bring their broadsides to bear upon the town.

Standing on the walls of the fort, by the side of a gun, the gunner ready with his lighted match, Stuyvesant watched the ships as they

1664.]

THE FALL OF NEW AMSTERDAM.

265

came up the harbor, and then swung to their anchors in the channel between Nutten (Governor's) Island and the fort. Had he ordered the gunner to fire, the ships would at once have bombarded the city. He gave no such order. Perhaps his own prudence restrained him, for though a violent man, his good judgment as we have sometimes seen often controlled his anger; perhaps he was restrained by the Dominies Megapolensis, father and son, who begged him not to be the first to shed human blood in such a contest. At any rate he gave no order, and no shot was fired. The city was quietly put under the guns of the two ships, and Stuyvesant left the fort with a hundred of the garrison to be prepared to resist a landing. The Directors of the West India Company afterward reproached him that he permitted himself to be influenced by the two clergymen and "other chickenhearted persons," and allowed himself "to be led in from the bulwarks between two preachers" while the hostile frigates passed the fort and the mouths of twenty pieces of cannon. But he did, no doubt, the best he could; he alone could not serve the twenty guns; and not another man, save he, in fort or city, seems to have thought of resist

ance.

Again he wrote to Nicolls, and again declared he should stand an assault, but sending at the same time a deputation of magistrates to come, if possible, to some agreement with the English commander. Nicolls would listen to no proposal but that of surrender; he should come, he said, the next day with ships and soldiers, and he would be a bold man who came on board unless the white flag was hung out from the fort.

zens

Stuyvesant beset by popular tu

mult.

When this answer was known the utmost panic spread through the town. The Director was beset with weeping women and children; in the City Hall a tumultuous assembly met, and a remonstrance was adopted, signed by all the principal citithem Stuyvesant's son among begging that the terms offered by the English might be at once accepted. The fort, they said, could not stand a three days' siege; the offer of the enemy was generous; their conduct had been forbearing; unless now there should be an immediate surrender they could foresee nothing but "misery, sorrow, conflagration, the dishonor of women, murder of children in their cradles, the absolute ruin and destruction of about fifteen hundred innocent souls." Still Stuyvesant declared "he had rather be carried a corpse to his grave" than yield.

The situation was, in truth, desperate. The town on the north was defended only by an embankment three feet high, surmounted by a fence of rotten palisades; this was overlooked by the hills outside within gunshot range commanding all the houses; and on both sides

the town was open to the rivers. The fort itself a council of war declared was untenable; there was not powder enough to last a day; there was no store of provisions for a lengthened siege. Moreover and worse than all, the garrison was mutinous. "Now we hope," they cried, "to pepper those devilish traders who have so long salted us; we know where booty is to be found, and where the young women live who wear gold chains!"

Nicolls came as he said he would, yielding nothing of his conditions, except that he promised the fort and city should be restored "in case the difference of the limits of this province be agreed upon betwixt his majesty of England and the high and mighty States-General,” — a promise most safe to make. The terms of surrender, which were merciful to the Dutch - the protection of life and property, a guaranty of religious liberty, freedom of trade, of emigration, of the public debt, of the laws of inheritance and contracts, and of a representative government were agreed upon on Saturday by a board of commissioners. On Monday the articles were ratified by the Directorgeneral.

The surren

Amsterdam.

And on Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, there marched out of Fort Amsterdam on the Beaver Street side, at der of New the head of the poltroons who knew where the young women lived who wore gold chains, the stern old wooden-legged soldier who would rather have been carried out a corpse to his grave. As they went on board ship in the East River for Holland, six columns of English soldiers filed through the streets of the city; English soldiers mounted guard at the Stadt Huys and at the city gates, while over the fort floated the English flag which a corporal's guard had hoisted as Stuyvesant passed out from beneath the shadow of the walls he would have so gladly defended. The obedient burgomas

ters proclaimed Nicolls as Governor; Fort Amsterdam was named Fort James; New Amsterdam was changed to New York; twelve days later Fort Orange surrendered without resistance to Sir George Cartwright, and the name of Albany, the duke's second title, was given to it.

Georgs Cartwright

Signature of Sir George Cartwright.

New Amstel was still to be reduced, and in the course of the month Sir Robert Carr sailed with three ships and a body of troops for the Delaware. This display of force only was necessary. On Sunday, the first day of October, Fort Casimir surrendered, and though there was no resistance and almost no parley, there was less consideration shown to the Dutch than there had been in New Am

New Amstel taken.