In a memorandum which they drew up they pointed out the hactenas inculta clause, the recital that Baltimore had asked the King for land "not cultivated or planted, but only inhabited as yet by barbarous Indians," whereas, they said, their people had before 1632 been settled upon the South river. The Maryland claim, they said, went back but twenty-seven years, whereas the Dutch had been in possession for forty years—a statement which could hardly be justified unless the supposed voyage of Hendricksen in 1616, in the Onrust, could be established. That De Vries had planted his colony at Swanendael in the early part of 1631, a full year before Lord Baltimore's grant, there was no doubt, but it was equally beyond question-as the Swedes had insisted —that that settlement had been abandoned almost as soon as begun. The result of the conferences, however, evidently was to impress the Maryland officials with a doubt of the complete validity of their claims upon the Delaware. Colonel Utie declared that he would like an opportunity to repeat his visit to New Amstel with a fresh commission, but Secretary Calvert and others of the Council were more conciliatory. What Fendall thought did not much matter, as he was nearing the end of his service as Governor. On the 20th of October Waldron departed for Manhattan, "with the reports, papers, and documents," while Herman proceeded to Virginia to try to make friends with the Governor there, in case of a possible future conflict with Maryland. No disturbance, therefore, of the peace of New Amstel was caused by the Maryland government. Nor did any other enemy appear for five years. The colonists on the Delaware continued much as before. At the death of Alrich, Alexander d'Hinoyossa succeeded as Deputy-Governor, and though his abilities. tended much more to distraction than order, and he pleased apparently no one but himself-certainly not Beekman, or Stuyvesant, as their letters and reports abundantly show-he held his place to the end of the Dutch rule in 1664. Few events in 1660-63 demand extended notice. D'Hinoyossa's arbitrary conduct, which Stuyvesant could not control because the City of Amsterdam owned the New Amstel colony, made no small part of Beekman's letters. Even worse was D'Hinoyossa's behavior to the Indians. The sale of liquor to them went on almost unchecked. Beekman's letters abound in details of this. In May, 1660, he quotes the testimony of several persons that for a long time no regard had been paid by the Governor "to the sale of strong drinks to the savages, so that they run about with it in the daytime, and discharge their guns near the houses," etc. few weeks later, June 30, he writes to Stuyvesant : A "Sir, I cannot omit to inform your honor that I see many drunken savages daily, and I am told that they sit drinking publicly in some taverns. On the 14th inst., when I went with Capt. Jacop and Mons. Schreck to the house of Foppe Janssen (a tavern) to salute Mr. Rendel Revel, who had come overland from Virginia, while we were there several drunken savages came before the windows, so that it was a disgrace in presence of strangers. Likewise our soldiers and others have told me that the savages had an entire anker of anise-liquor on the strand near the church, and sat around it drinking. One Gerret, the smith, came also at the same time complaining; he lives in the back part of the town near the edge of the forest, and says that he is much annoyed by drunken savages every night." One of the worst offenders in the liquor selling was an official at Altona, the "clerk and reader" for the Fort, Jan Juriaens Becker. Despite his semi-clerical character, he was a bold offender, and supplied both soldiers and Indians with brandy in the face of Beekman's protests. Finally he was brought to trial at Manhattan, and then accused others of the same thing. He declared, indeed, that it would be hard to find many persons on the South river who did not sell liquor to the Indians, "because without it it is hard to get provisions”— a statement which finds some support in a letter of Beekman himself, a little later, in which he says to Stuyvesant, "I need also two ankers of brandy or distilled water to barter it next month for maize for the garrison, as it is easier obtained for liquor than for other goods." Becker submitted the affidavits of three persons in his defense, who declared not only that liquor was "openly sold to the savages in the Colony and in and near Fort Altona," but that if the "poor inhabitants" did not sell or barter liquor to the Indians for “maize, meat, and other things, they would perish from hunger." And another affidavit submitted by Becker declared that Alrich had once sent the deponents "with several ankers of brandy and Spanish wine in a sloop to the savages, to trade them for Indian corn, or wampum or whatever they could best obtain." Becker was convicted and fined, but upon his earnest pleading that the fine would ruin him, and that the liquor traffic "was carried on so openly by high and low officers of the state," that he thought it a venial matter for him occasionally to trade some brandy "for Indian corn and deer meat," the main penalty was remitted. The Indians themselves were well aware of the ruin brought upon them by the "fire-water." Beekman writes in March, 1662, that at Tinneconck some of the "river" chiefs had "addressed themselves to Mr. Hendrick Huyghen," and had "proposed and requested that no more brandy or strong drink should be sold" to their people. They presented three belts of wampum to support the petition, and Beekman remarks that "the request was a proper one," agreeing with Stuyvesant's orders, and the placards posted about. D'Hinoyossa acted upon it by threatening a fine of 300 guilders on any trader caught selling liquor to the natives, and also authorizing the Indians themselves "to rob those who bring liquors." The consequences of the liquor traffic, open or illicit, were quarrels and bloodshed. The drunken Indian, equally with the drunken white man, was capable of every mischief, and it was the pitiable experience of the little hamlets at New Amstel and Al |